1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a printing system configured by connecting via a network an information processing apparatus which generates a print job to be output to a printing apparatus and a printing apparatus which prints based on a print job.
2. Description of the Related Art
In a conventional printing apparatus, a printer driver in a host apparatus such as a host computer generates print data corresponding to a printing apparatus from application data, and the printing apparatus receives and prints that print data. Also, one recent printing apparatus is capable of directly interpreting application data by the apparatus itself and directly printing (to be referred to as direct print hereinafter) the interpreted data.
On the other hand, a technique of printing invisible or visible digital information on a printing sheet is available. This technique converts digital information into a dot pattern in accordance with a certain rule and prints the dot pattern as an ink image on a printing sheet by a printing apparatus. The dot pattern forms information by using dot intervals and the like. The dot pattern is often printed using ink with a light-color component such as yellow so as to make the dot pattern serve as invisible information. When an object is present near the dot pattern, the color of the dot pattern is determined based on this object.
With this process, secret information or voluminous information can be embedded on a paper sheet and extracted later.
In an environment wherein the aforementioned direct print is used, generally, license management is done to control the use of direct print. For example, Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2005-27065 discloses the arrangement of such license management. More specifically, in a copying machine including a scanner unit and printer unit, authentication is performed when the use of software which is an optional function stored in a ROM is to be permitted. When the authentication is successful, the use of the function which is on the copying machine and implemented by the software is permitted.
However, since application data printed on a printing sheet cannot be directly printed in general, application data needs to be converted once into print data by using a printer driver on a host computer.
Note that when application data has a form which can be direct-printed by the printing apparatus, it is possible to print that data without using a host computer.
Direct print is generally a license-managed optional function, and a user often needs to purchase a license to validate the function. Such arrangement is preferable for administrators from the viewpoint of preventing unauthorized use, however, a complicated procedure such as license purchase is required for users in addition to routine operation.